In just four weeks, a sense of political euphoria has powered the Democrats back into contention in the presidential race under Kamala Harris and left Donald Trump sounding distinctly rattled.
Vice President Harris rode the wave of goodwill all week at the Democratic National Convention. She got an adulatory reception to her closing speech yesterday, after which 100,000 balloons rained down from the ceiling of Chicago’s United Center.
But the euphoria will only take you so far, and there is time between now and 5th November for the celebratory atmosphere to turn sour. Ms Harris has ducked serious scrutiny about policy, describing her priorities only in the broadest terms.
She has yet to submit to a proper media grilling since President Joe Biden’s dramatic departure brought her to the top of the ticket a month ago. On past performance, it’s an area where she struggles.
She does have the debating skills of the feared prosecutor she once was in San Francisco - and she will need to draw on all those skills when she faces Donald Trump in their first TV debate on 10th September.
When Ms Harris ran against Mr Biden for the Democratic nomination in 2020, she dealt some telling blows at their debates. But back then, her policy ideas were considered well to the left by US standards and her campaign was undermined by infighting. It ended even before the first caucuses in Iowa.
A long stretch of campaigning by a candidate who is willing to reflect and adapt can fix those shortcomings. For the Democrats, both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had to learn and evolve before they eventually secured power.
The abrupt compression of the 2024 race means Ms Harris has next to no time to change course if her old failings return. And in Trump, she faces a bare-knuckle opponent who doesn’t fight by any of the usual rules.
Harris has an average lead of 2-3 points in national polls and in some of the battleground states. Trump was ahead by that much before Biden bowed out, so she has reversed the deficit, and can expect another bounce after Chicago.
But the race has shifted constantly. Not long ago, Trump seen as a shoo-in when he survived assassination, andthe debate will be a key test of whether her lead is resilient.Still, these are unusual times in Western politics, and the normal rules have been absent in a series of elections. Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour kept their policy programme deliberately vague before the UK election last month, confident that disillusion with the Tories after 14 years of increasingly exhausted rule would be enough to win.
Labour were right on that, and some of their strategists have been in Chicago this week to share lessons learned with their Democratic peers. They include Labour Together chief Jonathan Ashworth and party General Secretary David Evans.
The lessons learned should include Mr Ashworth’s shock loss of his own seat in Leicester South to a pro-Palestinian activist.
In the US, the war in Gaza saw a sizeable bloc of voters turn their backs on the Democrats when Mr Biden was still the standard-bearer during the party primaries.
Now Ms Harris faces another challenge from the expected departure from the White House race of the independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, 70, who is set to throw in his lot with Trump. His campaign foundered, characterised by bizarre conspiracy claims and a story about his disposal of a bear carcass in Central Park, but he is, crucially, the nephew of John F. Kennedy, and the name still resonates in US politics.
He has been polling at just under five per cent - a potentially decisive margin in the key battleground states.
So the Democrats come out of Chicago justifiably feeling good. But now the hard part really begins for the largely untested vice president.
